A comparison of psychosocial functioning as well as the quality of life between young adult patients after orthognathic surgeries and healthy youth.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare psychosocial functioning as well as the quality of life of young adults after orthognathic procedures and healthy individuals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included 124 respondents aged between 16 and 25 years, 65 of whom had undergone orthognathic surgeries, and 59 healthy individuals. The study was carried out using a diagnostic poll method with both standardized tools and the author's own questionnaires: Authors own questionnaire, 'How do you cope?' Questionnaire, Emotional Intelligence INTE Questionnaire, The List of Personal Values (LOPV), The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), and The Short Form Health Survey (SF-36 v2). RESULTS: Patients after orthognathic procedures more frequently actively dealt with problems and sought social support rather than concentrating on emotions in terms of dispositional ways of coping with difficult situations. A statistically significant difference was established in the concentration on emotions subscale (CoE) for which lower average value was observed in the study group. Study and control groups differed in terms of the ability to recognise, understand, and control their own and other's emotions. CONCLUSIONS: Respondents from both groups similarly perceived personal values pointing to love and friendship, health, intelligence as well as happiness as the most important ones. Both patients after orthognathic procedures and healthy ones assessed their life satisfaction on an average level. A link between the choice of the strategy of coping with difficult situations and the fact of having undergone an orthognathic procedure exists. Patients after surgical procedures, in comparison with healthy individuals, less frequently opted for the concentration on emotions (CoE) strategy.

Quality of life of young adult patients after orthognathic surgery.

OBJECTIVE: Craniofacial defects are functional imbalances of their structures. Impaired speech and facial deformities hinder adolescents' ability to fulfill social roles. The optimal age for a patient to be qualified for orthognathic surgery is between 16 and 30 years. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study sample consisted of 65 patients after bimaxillary orthognathic surgery performed in the Head and Neck Surgery Department with Craniofacial Surgery Subdivision in Provincial Specialist Children's Hospital in Olsztyn. The research tools used in the study were: the author's questionnaire concerning sociodemographic data, and the following standardized questionnaires: the 'How Do You Cope?' questionnaire, the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (INTE), the List of Personal Values (LOPV), the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). RESULTS: The study demonstrated a positive correlation between the levels of QoL and general life satisfaction according to the SWLS. A negative relationship was observed between QoL and dispositional coping according to the 'How do you cope?' questionnaire. The emotion-focused coping strategy in the category of dispositional coping negatively correlated with eight of the SF-36 domains. CONCLUSIONS: Young adults after bimaxillary orthognathic procedures show a high level of QoL. The level of QoL depends, among others, on the level of emotional intelligence. Better ability to recognize emotions is associated with higher QoL in the domain of general health.

External carotid artery sacrifice in the treatment of infantile haemangiopericytoma in a neonate.

Haemangiopericytoma of the head and neck (HN-HPC) is a rare neoplasm occurring in children. The rarity of the tumour poses a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. Despite protocols that recommend the use of chemotherapy prior to surgery, no treatment standard has yet been proposed. This article reports the case of a 5-month-old infant with a rapidly growing, giant life-threatening HN-HPC that was treated successfully by two-stage surgery without adjuvant chemotherapy.